you that tonight or today at noon we'll replay the vice presidential debate. if you missed it last night you can see it again today at noon eastern. make up your mind who won, who lost. some of of the con 16edding, smiled too much, what have it. i'm don lemon. thank you for joining us and make sure you have a good weekend and the cnn news room continues right now with my friend ashleigh banfield. >> don lemon, did you actually stay up late and get up at 2:00 in the morning and do the show you do? >> three hours' sleep and it wasn't restful because i kept saying i'm going to miss the alarm. >> three hours' sleep when you have two children under the age of 6. >> you have me beat on that. >> you have me beat on that. >> good to talk to you. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >> good to have you with us, everybody. i'm, i'm ashleigh banfield. it's 8:00 a.m. on the west coast, 11:00 a.m. on the east

coast. go trying to look presidential, no. paul ryan who wants that title period both want to look very presidential, instead remember, it's a heartbeat away? the voters tend to think in those terms when it comes to vp am in mes, but last night in the debate in danville, kentucky, joed by hen another challenge. he needed to get his base back onboard after president obama's demoralizing defeat in round one last week. so from where biden -- so biden, you can see it, the smirk, the laughs and those one-liners. those who like him say this was good. it was aggressive and it was commanding. those who don't like him say this was rude, and it was unhinged and paul ryan, keeping his cool, punching back, he's out to prove that he is prime for the national stage. cnn's dana bash looking now at all the highlights.

>> reporter: these were two men who both came ready to tangle. >> i don't know what world these guys are in. >> on taxes. >> you can cut tax rates by 20% and still preserve these important preferences for middle class taxpayers. >> not mathematically possible. >> it is mathematically possible. >> reporter: on medicare -- >> if they allowed medicare to bargain for the cost of drugs like medicaid can, that would save $156 billion right off the bat. >> and it would deny seniors choices. >> reporter: on the president's foreign policy. >> when we look weak our adversaries are much more willing to test us, they're more brazen and our -- >> with all due respect that's a bunch of malarkey. >> reporter: he's preparing to make up for frz's mistakes last week, almost immediately launching the attack lines obama never used in his debate. >> it shouldn't be surprising for a guy who says 47% of the american people are unwilling to take responsibility for their own lives. >> my neighbors, they pay more

effective tax than governor romney pays in his income tax. >> reporter: before the debate, cnn was told paul ryan's team anticipated biden to be aggressive where the president was not especially on the infamous 47%. >> romney is a good man. with respect to that quote, i think the vice president very well knows that sometimes the words don't come out of your mouth the right way. >> i always say what i mean. and so does romney. >> biden's recovery plan for a demoralized dechl democratic base was not just in what he said, but what he did. >> in spite of their opposition. >> oh, god. biden jumped in constantly. >> that didn't happen. >> nobody is -- >> mr. vice president. >> the president was slammed for nodding as romney spoke. >> biden used the split screen to give a running commentary of disapproval with his facial

expressions. >> ryan had a zinger ready for all that, too. >> i know you're under a lot of duress to make up for lost ground, but i think people would be better served if we don't keep interrupting each other. >> for 90 minutes voters saw two dramatically different visions. >> for the economy. >> the last people who need help are 120,000 families for another -- another $500 billion tax cut over the next ten years. >> our entire premise of these tax reform plans is to grow the economy and create jobs. >> reporter: to national security threats like a nuclear iran. >> if they get nuclear weapons other people in the neighborhood will pursue their nuclear weapons as well. >> war should always be the absolute last resort. >> reporter: for the most part it was a substitute debate between two longtime lawmakers who tried to disagree without being too disagreeable. >> biden avoided any trademark gaffes, but did provide a little levity. >> this is a bunch of stuff, look -- >> what does that mean? >> it means it's simply

inaccurate. >> the irish. >> the irish call it malarkey. >> thank you. >> dana joins us live from danville, a woman who didn't sleep much. this is a spirited show, dana bash. it was definitely fun to watch, but did they achieve what they wanted to achieve any come out looking like the could be a heartbeat away from the presidency? >> think it's fair to say the answer to that was yes. for the most part, both of them did what they told us that they wanted to do going in from the perspective of the democrats what joe biden's aides and especially those closest to the process of them preparing was make up for the bad debate that the obama campaign knows that the president had last week. he did that and most importantly reenergizing the democratic base. that was, you know, some would argue and republicans are arguing forcefully that he did it too much that he went

overboard in his reaction in making sure not to nod like the president did and on the republican side, what they wanted to make sure was that -- excuse me, paul ryan could sit on the same stage in a legitimate way with the vice president. i think that there's no question he did that. the debate that is happening right now on the twitter verse between the campaigns is what i just talked about whether or not joe biden went too far. he was rude, he was out of control and i'll bet you'll see something on saturday night live, he was doing what he had to do. >> i think you hit it on the head. that is what will show up on snl and snl had a huge impact on the presidential campaign. >> i look fward to laughing with you on saturday night. even before the debate was over, the pundits, the voters, all of them weighing in and the

twitters verse was crazy and based on the cnn/orc poll taken right after the debate this thing was pretty much a draw, folks. 48% of registered voters who watched thought they thought ryan won the showdown and 44% thought biden won. this was a poll of 381 registered voters and it was late at night and are you going to call everyone in america at 11:00 at night? no. more republicans than democrats were in the sample and they were taking part as more independents than either democrats or republicans so you can mix that into the big baking dish and without debating who won or lost this thing, i want to get right to the issues that you have to weigh if you'll go into the voting booth. you have to know whether they handled themselves right. let's start with libya. almost right out of the gate there was this heated exchange. >> this is becoming more troubling by the day.

they first blamed the youtube video and now they're trying to blame the romney-ryan ticket for making this an issue. >> we weren't told they wanted more security. we did not know they wanted more security again. >> so joining me now with their take on all of this, ben smith is the editor in chief of the content website buzz feed and then to his right in san francisco is cnn contributor and anchor of "real news," amy holmes. let me start with you, ben since you're sitting right beside me. that was a big issue and this has been a contentious debate and the white house has been taking it on the chin over what happened in libya, and it seemed to some that either the vice president wasn't sure of his semantics when he said we didn't know they needed more security or it seemed to others he knew that the white house didn't have that information right away, but it's all about the optics. how did they come off last night on this very critical foreign policy issue. >> that struck me as biden's worst moment, and i don't know if joe biden personally knew

about barackbama, and there had been a hearing the previous day which was very clear that the state department knew and it is not clear what joe biden talked about there and you see ryan and that was the one moment where it seemed to me that was unclear with the statement. a amy, was that fair to jump all over this that anybody who brings a gun to a building to a building and could be called a terrorist, and it was whether it was a terroristic event and whether the semantics were lost in the debate. how do you feel about it? >> i think joe biden was trying to push back on what has been a difficult month on this issue for the administration and as ben pointed out this has been covered thoroughly by your network about what the administration knew. we knew that the state bpt knew in real time that there weren't protests going in front of the building in benghazi. i want to get back to the debate

and i have to tell you i have to congratulate our viewers for sitting through those 90 uncomfortable minutes of joe biden'santics. i couldn't believe what i was watching. >> oh, my lord, amy holmes, were you watching the same show as i was. this was great tv. heavens to betsy. >> my mother -- wait, my mother who voted for president obama in 2008 felt that the vice president's behavior was so obnoxious and so con descending. we know that democracy isn't free, joe biden made us pay last night. it was oh, god, it made my skin crawl. >> i only have about 30 seconds left for both of you so i'll go for ben first. you have to keep this tight. amy, raise the issue of the be on obnoxiousness and the eye rolling and what about the power of the body language. what they come out of this do they feel overall what kind of character they saw? >> i think as amy demonstrated,

conservatives hated what joe biden did. liberals loved it. one thing that was clear is biden totally dominated the debate. >> keep it tight, though. >> you know, biden, i don't think he was at a debate so much as a performance and it was a performance that was so off-putting and i'm looking forward to forgetting it and moving on to the next presidential debate. >> and away we go. it's nice to see you and i love the differing perspectives on this because we were all watching the same tv screen. for those of you who missed last night's debate, it was really good. uncomfortable or not, it was great tv and you can see it in its entirety here on cnn, and we start it off uninterrupted at noon eastern. one thing you can depend on is that these will come together. delicious and wholesome. some combinations were just meant to be. tomato soup from campbell's. it's amazing what soup can do.

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their ideas are old and their ideas are bad and they eliminate the guarantee of medicare. >> here's the problem. they got caught with the hands in the cookie jar taking it out for obama care. >> those are great sound bite, but how do we get to the truth in those comments. paul ryan stuck by his proposals

at the debate last night. only he said, partially privatizing medicare will not turn into a voucher program as the democrats have been suggesting. joe biden said that president obama's plan would save billions of dollars and extend the life of medicare until 2024, but who's right and who's wrong and who is stretching things further perhaps than they should? >> our tom foreman is here with a very quick fact check. >> hi, ashley. as i'm sure you know, medicare is the government health insurance program mostly for people over the age of 65. about 50 million americans rely on this program and this financial future over the long term doesn't look so good. the scary part is, though, that both campaigns say the other side's plans for dealing with that are just awful. >> obama care takes $716 billion from medicare to spend on obama care. all you seniors out there, have you been denied choices?

they haven't put a credible solution on the table. their ideas are old and their ideas are bad and they eliminate the guarantee of medicare. this is their essential claim that my opponent will destroy medicare, but is that really true? let's take a look at some of the facts and i'll bring in tools and look at the white house plan to begin with. this is the landscape they're dealing with. the cost of medicare will generally increase over the next ten years until it reaches about $1 trillion annually. they want to reduce that by about 10%. that's the orange part here. that's the part they're cutting out. now, their opponents look at that and say that's real care for real people that you're getting rid of and you just can't do that, but the white house says hold on. no, it's not, that's a reduction in the amount of money that we're paying to the administrative costs and to the hospitals and insurance programs. in a word, they say that is waste. we can get rid of it and we should get rid of it. that's the white house take on

things. now if you bring in the ryan, rom me plan. they also want to reduce it by about 10% and they want to rely on the private sector and not government to get that done. in a word, they're going for vouchers. they don't like calling it vouchers, but that's really what it is. right now if you're on medicare, what happens is the government pays medicare, medicare pays the hospital and the hospital takes care of you. under this plan, the government would pay you and you would decide if you topped the buy into medicare or into private insurance that would create competition between the two and their theory and that is how you get at that very same waste that the white house wants to get out. these are two very complicated, huge programs. there are critics on both sides who say this plan won't work or that plan won't work or this plan will leave people stranded or that plan will leave people stranded, but the truth is it is complicated and hard to deal with all of that. so if we go to the basic claim

that both sides have raised that somehow this is about destroying medicare, that is simply false and that is a scare tackic no matter which side is saying it. why are they saying it so much? all you have to do is look at the map and you know. across the country, the baby boomers are getting older and they're becoming a begger percentage of the voting population fast. look at florida down here, battleground state, more than 17% of the population there is over the age of 65. these are engaged voters. they are voters who show up when it's time to vote and they're very concerned about medicare, even though both sides say neither plan is going to affect people over the age of 65 right now. they're engaged on this issue and whicheveside wins the medicare debate will probably win a lot of senior votes. >> you know, when tom foreman speaks i just listen because he makes such sense. for those of you who missed what

tom was talking about, we aim to please and we'll replay the entire vice presidential debate and noon eastern and that's 9:00 a.m. pacific so you won't miss a thing. and get the all day pain relief of aleve in liquid gels. i wish my patients could see what i see. ♪ that over time, having high cholesterol and any of these risk factors can put them at increased risk for plaque buildup in their arteries. so it's even more important to lower their cholesterol, and that's why, when diet and exercise alone aren't enough, i prescribe crestor.

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>> you can cut tax rates by 20% and still preserve these important preferences for middle class taxpayers. >> not mathematically possible. >> it is mathematically possible, and it has been done before. >> it's never been done before. >> it's been done a couple of times. >> now you're jack kennedy? >> ronald reagan. >> now you're jack kennedy? >> and tax cuts and auto bailout and those are big issues that got really heated between joe biden and paul ryan at last night's vice presidential debate so i immediately thoughthe person i would have to call on this to fact check it would be christine romans and she was available. thank you. so here's the deal. it just stands to reason that they both seem to say something with such confirmation in their voices and it's hard to say how this can be different. >> it's politics, my friend. talk taxes because i keep hearing this 20% across the

board tax cut and then i hear the counterclaim, you can't pay for that. the math doesn't work. >> you can't make the math work. >> we have looked into this and the tax policy center says you can't make the math work. paul ryan's claim that you can cut it 20% across the board and keep it intact all of the while keeping it neutral and it says given the information available that we have about their plans is just not possible to cut that tax as much as they'd like and not add to the deficit without eliminating deductions, by the way, that could hurt the middle class. they say you can't do it by changing rules and capital govern the that the romney campaign says it will not do. >> the romney campaign absolutely will not go to capital gains and it's about a cornucopia of money and the middle class is also a cornucopia of money and it will cut them for the middle class. the campaign has said again and again that they'll work with congress to try to figure out

the best way to do that and that will mean horse trading, right? so we can't really tell you that you can -- deficit neutral and cut that much money so the verdict is false and you can't cut taxes and keep lower rates on capital gains and i asked mark zandi from moody's analytics and said mark, how can the romney campaign make this promise come true and this is what he said. romney campaign could adjust their plan and they could say okay, i'm not going lower the tax rate as much as i'm saying right now and they could make the arithmetic work, but under the current plan with the current numbers, no, it doesn't. the tax policy center and mark zandi says it just doesn't work. we'll have ways of scaling back deductions for wealthier americans and we can make it work. >> another day you and i will do a segment on carried interest and capital gains and how much money is actually saved by the very wealthy because of -- >> because they're taxed at a

lower rate than everyone else. >> how big that pot could potentially be. one of the claims last night and we hear it quite often is that mitt romney had said let detroit go bankrupt. this is what joe biden said last night and you know what? headlines, if you don't know this on television, i'm going to tell you. headlines are not written by the person who writes the article. take it away, christine. >> okay. so let's listen first to the claim that joe biden said many, many times that mitt romney said let detroit go bankrupt. >> we knew we had to work with the middle class. we immediately went out and rescued general motors and cut taxes for the middle scomplas in addition to that, when that occurred what did romney do? he said no, let detroit go bankrupt. >> what did mitt romney say and what did he write? he wrote an op ed in the new york times that was titled let

detroit go bankrupt. the headline he put was the way forward for the auto industry. he didn't use those words within the body of the piece. this is what he wrote among other thing, a managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. would propel newly competitive automakers rather than seal their fate with a bailout check. the obama administration implemented a managed bankruptcy of the automakers. >> they both had the same concept. mitt romney and president obama had the same concept of a managed bankruptcy. >> different concepts. mitt romney didn't want a bunch of government money and taxpayer money going in and guaranteeing these automaker, but when you hear the words let it go bankrupt he wanted it outf business. he said he did not want them and he did not want the taxpayer involved the way they were. we decided this is misleading, the statement. the op ed was titled let detroit

go bankrupt by "the new york times," romney wanted a managed bankruptcy overall and ultimately there was a managed bankruptcy. look, there are different views on how to fix the auto industry, but mitt romney did want to fix the auto industry. >> both of the sides had views about a managed bankruptcy, but don't believe the had headline that was attributed to mitt romney. >> it ultimately worked, by the way. >> you can make a fair argument, without question. >> get some sleep tonight. for those of you who missed it and you did get your sleep last night you'll get to watch the debate because we'll replay it. the entire vice presidential debate starts at 9:00 a.m. on the pacific coast today. don't miss it. so much... i told her it was homemade. everyone tells a little white lie now and then. but now she wants my recipe [ clears his throat ] [ softly ] she's right behind me isn't she? [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup.

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i will never get tired of watching this, people.

that is the shuttle endeavour in the streets of l.a., and even though you can't tell, it really is inching along at a rapid rate of 2 miles an hour and it's on its way to the california science center. by the way, when it flew it used to fly at 17,000 miles an hour, so this is pretty awesome, but to me, this is awesome. we've seen it riding with a rocket booster on the back of a 747, it will be pulled by an teeny, weinie toyota tundra. the idea of the difference between them. adorable. the whole thing weighs over 292,000 pounds. the endeavour alone weighs 150,000 pounds and that's a lot of carrying devices, et cetera. we looked this up, a toyota tundra has a maximum towing capacity of 10,000 pound, but when it pulls this spacecraft it's 282,000 pounds over its capacity. our john zarrella who gets

everything science joins us from l.a. because you've had this fabulous assignment the whole journey. tell me where we are in the journey and how we're doing today. >> reporter: okay, where we are, ashleigh is we're parked and it's a tremendous opportunity for the people of los angeles and they're coming out with their kids and their families and getting to take pictures with the orbiter and what happened was they had to move from the airport before they got into l.a. rush hour traffic. they didn't want to be dealing with that so they moved it early this morning and it's only gone a mile and a half, two miles from this location here and it's going sit here for nine hours before they actually move it again. they're doing a little bit of reconfiguring of the transporter system which is incredibly unique in and of itself and it's remote controlled and a guy literally walks in front of it moving these hundreds and hundreds of wheels under it so they can move it and turn it around different streets and they'll reconfigure it today and

they'll be taking down power lines before they head out and move again, but the whole journey is going to be 12 miles over a course of 46 hours so not until tomorrow night will they get to the california science center. the shuttle's wingspan is 75 feet wide and they've had to literally cut down 400 trees in order to make room for the vehicle along these streets. now, the california science center says it's going to replant two trees for every one they've had to cut down and they've had to move power lines and streetlights and overhead signs and you can see how incredibly tall. it's over 65, 70 feet high and that's about there, sitting on top of the transporter, b what an opportunity for the folks here in los angeles to just come up and get this close-up view of the vehicle that it's an incredibly rare opportunity. ashleigh? >> it's like a moving museum. i am glad you told me it stopped

and i was watching it at 5:00 a.m. that it was slowly inching behind you and zarrella, great assignment and great work. thank you, john. have a great weekend. >> you got it. bye. >> if you want to track what john sees, we've got it on our website and you can track the progress of endeavour all of the way down the streets of l.a. just go to nasa.gov. that's true. ...but you still have to go to the gym. ♪ the one and only, cheerios

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...with a deeper knowledge of their subjects. as a result, their students achieve at a higher level. let's develop more stars in education. let's invest in our teachers... ...so they can inspire our students. let's solve this. i want to take you live to indiana and hoosierville. this is a rally bill clinton is taking part in today. it's actually for the indiana dec democrats and this is a get out the vote that president clinton is taking part in.

he's got a busy schedule he's ahead of because he's taking part in a lot of events for president obama and joe biden. he's headed to arizona on wednesday and iowa later in the week, as well. so today this is an effort at a high school. it's north central high school on indianapolis' north side. let's listen in really quick. >> they started, as people enrolled, they started whittling down the profit margin because they realized that as soon as people could get the preventive services and people stayed healthier and the costs stayed down, you couldn't justify wasting the taxpayers' money on that kind of profit margin. so they got some new recommendations which as i said the aarp endorsed and we can cut this profit margin back down to $1.14 for every dollar you spend on regular medicare. in fairness, the people that started it said it ought to be exactly the same because you

should have your people healthier and less cost, so we're getting toward that, right? that's all they did and when you cut the profit margin down that much you've still got a lot of business in indiana killed for a guaranteed, 14% profit every single day, every single month, every single year at a time. [ applause ] now that's all this deal is, but in everybody's budget before they assume the higher cost. once you say you're not going to spend the $716 billion, it keeps medicare alive until 2024. now if you do that, then all these radical changes these guys are proposing and privatizing it become unnecessary because it gives us more than a decade to see whether we can bring health care costs overall down to the rate of inflation.

if we do, we won't have to do those radical things because health care costs in the private sector have gone up way more than medicare costs have. what you have to do is bring health care costs down to the rate of inflation we're getting and by the way, in the last two years health care costs have been under 4% two years in a row for the first time and listen to this, 50 years. so -- that's the deal. so the idea that joe was out there ripping off medicare is not so. you ought to be glad that he said we're not going to spend that money where it would be a waste of your money and instead we're going to use it to close the doughnut hole in the drug program that will save $16 million for seniors and to help provide affordable health insurance for more than $30

million americans with pre-existing conditions who do not have it. >> that's what you call -- oh, yea, campaign gold. you also call it tv ratings gold because when that dude was at the dnc, most people watched their tv sets for the news and for the dnc coverage than at any other time this year, it seemed. when he goes out on the trail, i'm sure those two nice gentlemen that i don't recognize from indiana are really happy. let me talk more about what happened last night, though, bill clinton wasn't anywhere to be seen last night and we want to know what you think about it because we actually tried to tap your thoughts very late last night. cnn did some late-night polling, calling you, hopefully not waking you up to ask you what you thought of the debate and mark preston is here to break down some of the answers we got. we talked about how people fwelt about the debate overall and it was a win, lose or draw and that

was a draw, but there were some statistical issues that we need to put out there in terms of our sampling. can you give me the headline on that and go into deeper numbers? >> sure. this was a poll last night of 381 people who actually watched the debate and we got their sentiment whether they thought paul ryan had won or whether joe biden had won. in addition to that, this poll last night tended to be more republican than what the polls are. america as a whole tends to be more identified democrats and last night's poll had an eight-point advantage over what the normal polls are when it comes to republicans being sampled within the polling method. so i know that's all confusing so let's just get right to the numbers because that's what people want to see and hear anyway, ashley. who won the debate last night from these debate watchers and it shows according to these numbers that paul ryan comes out on top, but it's still within the margin of error, and i have

to tell you, i was with the advisers from the romney-ryan campaign and the biden-obama campaign down in danville, kentucky. right after the debate they both were declaring victory. moving on a little bit from that, what was the opinion of joe biden after this, ashley? and the opinion is that joe biden has a plus two net. basically, he went up a little bit when it came to his fav favorability and he also went up one point and his unfavorability and if you put those numbers together he came up plus 2. look at paul ryan and something that the american public don't know a whole lot about. his net was a plus five for paul rya know. not only did his unfavorability go down, but his favorability went up. look, the next debate is on tuesday and that's what most people will be focusing on. >> we have four days to digest that and two of those days are weekend days, so, paul -- or

rather, mark preston, thank you and we'll be talking to you on tuesday when we have the next big one. thank you, sir. by the way, folks, just a reminder, if you missed the showdown between ryan and biden, you're in luck. we'll let you watch uninterrupted. we're airing the whole debate at the top of the hour, 13 minutes away and make sure you stay tuned right here on cnn. i'm barack obama, and i approve this message. "i'm not in favor of a $5 trillion tax cut. that's not my plan." mitchell: "the nonpartisan tax policy center concluded that mitt romney's tax plan would cost $4.8 trillion over 10 years."

vo: why won't romney level with us about his tax plan, which gives the wealthy huge new tax breaks? because according to experts, he'd have to raise taxes on the middle class - or increase the deficit to pay for it. if we can't trust him here... how could we ever trust him here?

if you didn't catch last night's grudge match between the scranton scrapper and the wisconsin whiz kid, i guess we should have put up a spoiler alert at the top of the hour. about 15 minutes from now -- nine minutes give or take four minutes, we're going to reair the whole one-on-one. the debate of the running mates. it starts in just a couple of minutes. debate 2012. hold on because you're going to see a lot more of this. joe biden democratic incumbent versus the gop challenger paul ryan start to finish as it happened, no interruptions, about the until then i want to bring in the mainstay of the cnn

debate coverage and our big-time political go-to guy in general wolf blitzer. wolf, i'm going to start off brady bunch style with three words. martha, martha, martha. i know it's marcia, marcia, marcia, but martha radditz was really quite something to watch. i want to show a quick clip of her work and ask you something on the other side. >> this is a bunch of stuff. look, here's the deal -- >> what does that mean, a bunch of stuff? >> well, it means it's simply inaccurate. >> it's irish. >> we irish call it mularkey. >> and you're going to increase -- >> and you're going to increase the defense -- >> we're not going to cut the defense budget. they're proposing -- >> by $2 billion. >> more than that. no massive -- >> no, we're saying -- >> defense increase. >> you want to get into defense now? >> we want to work with the congress on how best to achieve this. that means successful. >> no specifics? >> what we're saying is lower tax rates 20%, start with the

wealthy, work with congress to do it -- >> and you guarantee this math will add up? >> absolutely. >> wolf, at times this looked like it was a three-way debate, and it was definitely different from last week's moderating from jim. >> that's right, jim took a much more hands-off style. he let the two presential candidates go at it in that particular debate. we knew romney went at it. the president didn't go at it so much. i suspect that's going to be different in this debate. martha raddit sfwl of abc news, she got involved, and she haves much more controlling, if you will, in terms of the questioning, making sure that both had relatively the same amount of time and allowing some significant back and forth, and then cutting it off when she wanted to move on. she was clearly in control much more involved than jim was. jim laird, on his credit, he didn't want to be part of the debate. martha had a different style. >> all right, wolf. i'm going ask you a question, get you to think about it over the next break.

some people have criticized joe biden as looking like a condee sending dad reaming out his son, whereas others said, no, no, this looked like a pretty clever son advising his aging dad as to how things have change whered. when we come back after the break, i want to get your take on that and what it might mean for voters. >> okay.

sfli went tout to break asking you about the father-son dynamic? >> i think obviously joe biden is 69 years old. paul ryan is 42 years old. 27-year difference, but on all of these issues the two went at it, and i thought paul ryan -- he went toe to toe on national security foreign policy issues with the vice president who has way more experience in all of these areas than ryan did, but ryan obviously has studied a lot. certainly over the last few weeks getting ready for this

debate. he didn't fumble, and the vice president, there were no gaffs by joe biden during this dae bait. people can dmran about some stylistic maneuvers and the hands and the smiles and the smirks and all that kind of stuff, but there were no major verbal gaffs or anything by either of these candidates. i think it was a pretty good substantive debate. >> okay. so now i want to jump to something that's sort of unusual. i don't often hear pundits discuss this part of the debate. it was the very end, the stuff you're not usually supposed to be watching. it was when the families came up on the stage. i don't know about you, but i felt like i saw very different dynamic playing out. i saw not in the picture you're looking at now, but joe biden was hugging paul ryan's wife. the mom. i just thought, well, there's a mom who is looking at him saying, you know, you just went after my son, and then all of the families mingled. wives with other candidates. hugs, kisses, and it just seemed i have to say rather lovely.

we want them to be civilized and -- >> it did not look fake at all. there's the vice president with paul ryan's wife chatting. they're smiling. it just looked very honest and i just wish that we could say more -- like we could say more things like the way washington d.c. works in general. on to the next one, wolf. you got a lot of work ahead of you for tuesday. thank you, sir. nice to see you. >> thank you. >> wolf blitzer joining us. always such a treat to be able to talk to wolf blitzer about these things. okay. so i promised you this. if you didn't have a chance to stay up late -- look, we all have kids. we get